FAIRFAX, VA—For the most part, CMBS is healthy. Just to name one recent sign: Fitch Ratings says few CMBS 2.0 loans from 2010 on have entered special servicing, and the status quo is likely to remain in place at least until maturity dates draw nearer—despite the looser underwriting.

Still, there are exceptions, one of which occurred in the DC area recently. As Trepp just reported, the loan tied to adjacent office buildings at Eaton Place here was sent to the special servicer this week. The buildings are Willowwood I & II, owned by Liberty Property Trust. They are two five-story multitenant office buildings totaling 244,871-squarefeet.

Trepp reports that payments for the $46.4 million mortgage backed by the two buildings "lingered into the grace period this month." Essentially the buildings were transferred into special servicing because of imminent monetary default, Trepp Research Analyst Sean Barrie tells GlobeSt.com. Occupancy had dropped 9% to 72% at the end of 2014 from the three prior months. Also the Debt Service Coverage Ratio had been below the 1.20x threshold since 2010 and in fact had reached 0.87x. "Whether poor financials led to the lower occupancy or vice versa it is hard to say," Barrie says.

The development is telling for the region, but only in a limited sense. Barrie says this transaction doesn't raise any red flags for property owners in the area; generally speaking DC area assets are performing as well as any others in CMBS.

However, the move of the two buildings in special servicing does highlight the excess of inventory in the suburbs that was exacerbated by the recession and then the sequester. "At one point DC's office market was seen as recession-proof," Barrie says. Liberty Property Trust did not return a request for comment to GlobeSt.com in time for publication.